'Next to Normal': Musical takes dramatic look at bipolar disorder

From the moment she first saw the Tony Award-winning musical “Next to Normal,” actress Stacia Fernandez was determined that she would one day play the leading role of Diana Goodman, a woman trying to cope with bipolar disorder.

“I had gotten so close to it so many times on Broadway,” said the actress, who finally got her chance in Sarasota, where she stars in the Florida Studio Theatre production that opens Friday after previews Wednesday and Thursday.

Fernandez is taking a leave of absence from the Broadway production of “Mamma Mia,” where she has played the roles of Tanya and Rosie.

“I call it an over-40 Eva Peron,” Fernandez said between rehearsals two weeks ago. “Many of my middle-aged women peers have all said that to me, ‘That’s my role. It was written for me.’ ”

Female actresses get protective and desirous of such roles because so few of them are available.

“We have a very male-centric world, but these guys wrote a complete, actualized fully-arced character. She is wounded and lives a full life and heals within the course of 2 1/2 hours,” Fernandez said of Diana.

Florida Studio Theatre’s production is one of the first regional theater productions since the show’s Broadway run ended in January with the launching of a national tour.

“No show on Broadway right now makes as direct a grab for the heart — or wrings it as thoroughly — as ‘Next to Normal’ does,” The New York Times wrote when the show opened in 2009. “This brave, breathtaking musical ... focuses squarely on the pain that cripples the members of a suburban family, and never for a minute does it let you escape the anguish at the core of their lives.”

It’s not your “standard feel-good musical,” he wrote. “Instead this portrait of a manic-depressive mother and the people she loves and damages is something much more: a feel-everything musical, which asks you, with operatic force, to discover the liberation in knowing where it hurts.”

The musical offers a change of tone from the generally more upbeat shows that Artistic Director Richard Hopkins usually chooses to open each new FST season. And he admits it might be a difficult show to promote from a basic description.

“It’s hard to say we’re doing this great play about this woman with bipolar disorder. But once word gets out that you have to see this play, it’s a great evening in the theater,” said Hopkins, who is directing the production. “It’s lighter than it is dark. It’s great drama, great comedy, fantastic music. It’s really loaded with everything.”

Hopkins said the show deals honestly and openly about people facing mental illness.

“The play is so well-written and researched about the issues of bipolar disorder and mental illness, and it has two doctors who give you a sense of two points of view in doctoring and the healing processes,” Hopkins said.

That may be one reason the show won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for drama. It also won three Tony Awards, for the score by Tom Kitt and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, for orchestrations and for Alice Ripley’s leading actress performance as Diana. The show ran for 733 performances on Broadway.

Fernandez has done as much preparation as she had time for during the short period between when casting decisions were made and the start of rehearsals.

She began by working with a vocal coach “to make sure I had a safe place where I could sing it eight times a week. Then I got ‘A Quiet Mind’ and looked at all of Carrie Fisher’s writings and the book ‘Bipolar for Dummies.’ ”

She also looked through blogs written by and for people with bipolar disorder and “read through pages and pages of what they’re feeling and talking about.”

Ashley Picciallo and James LaRosa in Florida Studio Theatre's production of the musical "Next to Normal." COURTESY PHOTO/MARIA LYLE PHOTOGRAPHY

Fernandez plays a woman dealing with mental illness but still trying to cope with her husband, a son and a daughter, while also being treated with a variety of medications that affect her actions and attitudes.

Leo Daignault, who starred on Broadway in “Avenue Q” and toured in “The Full Monty,” “The Scarlet Pimpernel” and “Miss Saigon,” plays her supportive but stressed husband, Dan. Ashley Picciallo plays their daughter Natalie; Mike Backes, an original cast member of “Jersey Boys” in Las Vegas, plays their son, Gabe. James LaRosa plays Natalie’s boyfriend and Scott Guthrie plays two doctors who treat Diana.

Though Hopkins repeatedly refers to the show as a play, it is a musical with most of the story told through a score that has been likened to a rock musical. But musical director Aimee Radics said “that’s doing it an injustice. It’s so much more than that. It’s a very eclectic show. There are some rock tunes, there’s jazz, there is a little bit of country and some stunning, beautiful and simple ballads.”

She calls it brilliant because “there’s nothing jarring. nothing seems out of place. We just had a country song and now we have this driving rock song and it’s driving rock because it needs to be. The style of the musical effectively helps to tell the story.”

Before taking on the role, Fernandez got some advice from people who worked on the Broadway production about how to deal with the vocal and dramatic demands of playing Diana.

“Some people talked about how you carry this role with you. They told me that once you leave the stage, the second you’re off stage, start telling jokes or singing silly songs, otherwise you’re going to carry this with you. You have to shake this off.”

But she’s looking forward to being part of the Goodman family.

“We have to live inside this family eight times a week,” she said. “It’s not going to be easy, but it’s sure going to be exciting.”

Jay Handelman

Jay Handelman is the theater and television critic for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, where he has worked since 1984. He also is President of the Foundation of the American Theatre Critics Association and a two-time past chairman of the association's executive committee. He can be reached by email or call (941) 361-4931. Follow him at @jayhandelman on Twitter. Make sure to "Like" Arts Sarasota on Facebook for news and reviews of the arts.

Last modified: October 29, 2011
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